Will OC be possible?

T

TheLostOne

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Hello

This is my first post in this forum, and I should also declare that I am a complete newbie in this field of OC!

What I would like to know whether it is possible to run a OC machine for long time (about 8 hrs at least) using stock cooling? I do a lot of video encoding and other related works, for that I need to keep the PC running for a long time, unattended and during this period some other tasks will also run (like download manager downloading large files, real time AV scanner etc).

I am running Intel C2D E4300 processor on ASUS P5B- VM board. The SMPS is 450W JBM (Indian). The RAM is 3 GB DDR2 667 MHz(1GBx 3), one module is from Transcend and other two from Kingston. There is no Graphics card at present, though I plan to install 9600GT or 8600GT in near future. There are two HDD at present, 160GB SATA II, and 80GB Barracuda IDE, both from Sygate. I plan to include one more HDD (either 250GB or 320GB SATA II) in future.

Let me know whether OC is an option in my case. If yes then I shall proceed with your guidance. :(
 
The C2D stock coolers aren't bad, and you can overclock a bit on them - however, they will certainly significantly limit the maximum stable overclock you can achieve. You should ensure that your overclock is within acceptable temperature limits and is as stable as possible (test with Prime95, etc.) before leaving it unattended, though.
 
Thanks for replying...:)

Well I am not at all greedy, and I shall be quite happy with a 2.2 Ghz OC, or a little below- I have no intention to toast my processor. Furthermore, as I have large amount of RAM, I think a little OC with the RAM size should give me a good performance boost.

Now what is worrying me is whether my mobo is capable of handling OC! :?:

Now regarding your testing with prime 95 and others, I have no idea what to do and how to do- sorry for being so much of a newbie...:(

So how should I proceed?
 
This sticky should be useful:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1198647

It seems that your board is somewhat limited on the overclocking front, but I'd still hope to get a bit out of it.

I'm not sure what overclock you'll get, as I don't have an E4300 myself (and chips vary, of course). The general idea is to gradually increase the FSB by a few megahertz at a time; your stock FSB is 200MHz, and you'd be aiming for 245MHz to get 2.2GHz. Don't try to jump there directly though, take it slowly. I'd also recommend setting your FSB:DRAM divider to 1:1, so the RAM isn't overclocked while you sort out the CPU; on my Asus board, you don't set the divider directly, but rather set the RAM speed, and 1:1 divider will mean that the RAM is at twice the FSB frequency (so, say, for a 210MHz bus, the RAM will be at DDR2-420MHz, if set to 1:1 - remember it's Double Data Rate RAM). Try to avoid overclocking the RAM, as there's not really much benefit from doing so, and you'll not know if any problems you get are from the RAM or CPU.

You need CoreTemp or HWMonitor as well as Prime95 (links in the sticky). Fire up CoreTemp/HWMonitor and check the temperature of your cores to make sure they're not too high, then run Prime95's Small FFTs test with error checking turned on, and watch the core temperatures to see what they get up to at load. If they get too hot (above 70C is probably getting warmer than most people would be happy with) then you're probably limited by cooling and you may have to back down to a lower FSB. You'll get a decent idea of temperatures within a few minutes, but these do tend to creep up over time, and it's a good idea to run Prime95 for a number of hours to be reasonably confident of stability.

If Prime95 reports errors or there are other stability problems, it may be helpful to slightly increase the CPU Vcore, but only do so at the smallest increments allowed. However, I'm not sure how your board stands for Vcore changes, since it's not an overclocker board. Increasing the voltage markedly increases heat output though, so watch the temperatures carefully, and it's inadvisable to overvolt the CPU by more than maybe 0.1V without good cooling.

Setting a fixed Vcore is a good idea when overclocking though, if your board allows it - you can find your stock voltage in CoreTemp, it's the VID value. Motherboards tend to overvolt the CPU when you start overclocking if the voltage is set to Auto, which produces unnecessary heat. If your motherboard won't let you set the Vcore then you'd have to live with it though.
 
Thanks very much Mithent...:)

Let me go through all the materials you have kindly listed and I shall get back to you ASAP...
 
Hello Mithent

Thank you for your last post and I have gone through the materials, but I can not claim that I have understood everything correctly.

I have run Orthos and CoreTemp and here are the screen shots:

coretemp1df9.png


orthos1fy4.png


I am also enclosing the logs in case those are required.

One more doubt is about the memory. The type recommended in the sticky is 4-4-4-12, but I do not think that I have the same one. Here is a screen shot of CPU-z. Can this memory be used?

cpuzmemoryue4.png


Please suggest.....
 
The CoreTemp screenshot is from when Orthos is running, i.e. under full load? It shows the cores at 77C, which is already pretty hot, and hotter than I would have expected - I don't have an E4300 with a stock cooler, but something in the low 60s would have been more encouraging.

I'm not sure I'd be happy with trying to overclock when it's that hot by default. Is the case well-ventilated? What are the fan settings in the BIOS? You could also try setting a slightly lower Vcore voltage in the BIOS (say, 1.300V) and see if it's still stable and cooler, although that wouldn't be very helpful if it prevented you overclocking.

If you set your RAM to run at 1:1 (you can see it's set to 3:5 at the moment in CPU-Z) then that will ensure that it's not overclocked; you can try RAM settings once the CPU is sorted. I wouldn't worry about changing the RAM timings - 4-4-4-12 are tighter timings than 5-5-5-15 anyway and could cause problems. But again I think the cooling situation needs to be addressed first.
 
I agree with you Mithent....

When I bought this I really did not have much idea about cooling and options of air flow. I would check if I can use some extra fans to cool it down further. There are three fans in it: one with the processor hit sink (stock), another in the PSU (exhaust, ultra silent 120 cm cooling fan) and other at the back, just below the PSU, also 120mm in size. I have made the last one as an Intake fan as the PSU one is exhaust, in a hope that better air flow can be achieved.

In case you are interested, here are the links describing my SMPS and Cabinet:

http://www.jbmpc.com/index.php?page...ufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

http://www.jbmpc.com/index.php?page...ufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

The CoreTemp reading screen shot is showing the reading while Orhtos is still running for about 37 mins.
 
I'd back off the OC a bit if it's hitting 77c in less then an hour.

I think Intel said their chips are good until 70c, once past that you risk damaging it.

I wouldn't really invest in aftermarket cooling due to the fact that it would almost be a waste of money because your Mobo couldn't handle a high enough OC to make the cooler worth the $30-$60 you'd spend on a cooler.

Is your case air flow correct?

To put your temps in perspective, my overclocked Amd x2 4000 (2.1ghz --> 2.74ghz) runs at 25c idle and 45c Max (8 hours of orthos).
 
I have no idea whether my air flow is correct or not, but from your given data it seems that it is not correct. :(

I have mentioned about my air flows in my previous post, and let me know what can be done to improve it...
 
Well basically you just apply some common sense and 9th grade Science theory.

Hot air rises, cold air sinks. Therefore you should have an exhaust (blowing outside the case) fan on the top of your case.

Basically the way my case is set up is...

I have 2 80mm intake fans in the front bottom of my case (Hard drive cooling).
1 80mm Exhaust on the top of my case
1 120mm Intake fan on the front of my case sitting in my empty 5.25 bay(level with my CPU)
My CPU fan in the middle
1 120mm Exhaust fan level with my CPU on the back of my case
1 80mm intake fan on my left side panel blowing in toward across my HD's


So pretty much I made a sandwhich of my CPU. I have one 120mm infront of my CPU "feeding" it cool air and then I have another 120mm fan behind it taking away the hot air that my CPU blows at it.

Then the Top exhaust is because of the "hot air rises, cold air sinks" law.

Then I just have 2 80's in the front cooling my HD's and then my 80mm on the side sorta cools the bottom of my case just to keep air moving.


What i'm getting at is don't have the fan in the front as intake AND the fan in the back as intake because where the hell is the air supposed to go if you have no exhaust fan. Just use some common sense and you'll be fine.

Also, don't beat yourself up over this to much. there's a lot of factors that can go into cooling. Some cases cool better then others, same with fans, your room may be to hot, and just a bunch of other things like that.

Edit: as for the ram. I have 2 x 1 gig of Corsair XMS2 4-4-4-12 ram. I now have it running at 4-4-4-10, 457mhz. I just ordered 2 more sticks of it for when I upgrade to vista x64 because it's only $30 now!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034
 
Ok, I found out. The PSU fan is Exhaust and so was the rear 120mm Fan fixed below the PSU. As at present I could not ascertain whether there is any option to install an intake Fan at the front, for the time being I have reversed the rear fan to work as an intake fan, so that the Hot Air leaves through PSU exhaust. I have also changes the Q Fan Control to Performance mode and now CoreTemp reports 48C as the temperature of each of the cores.

BTW, my room is pretty hot, as the weather is hot. So I don't expect it to go down to 35C on load, but I think40C during night time can be expected.

I am also considering applying a fresh layer of Thermal Paste....
 
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